Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(81)

“Okay,” he said. “I’m done.”

She opened her eyes. They stared at each other. His gaze dilated, fixed totally on her. He wiped the edge of her lower lip with the corner of his thumb, and breathed, “ ‘She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that’s best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes.’ Darling, you have always been gorgeous but now you are now officially the shit.”

One corner of her mouth trembled, and lifted. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” he said, and his voice was lower, rougher than it had been before. He pulled her off the counter and turned her to face the mirror, and once again, she stared at herself. She ignored her own features to concentrate on the deft delicacy with which he had enlarged her eyes, emphasized the high cheekbones, and brightened her full mouth. He had not put a single brush stroke wrong. She looked bright and beautiful, and she glowed like a cherished woman.

Cherished.

She leaned back against his chest. He put his arms around her. Their eyes met again in the mirror, that elegant dangerous Rune and the strange new woman, and the impact of the connection was as raw as when Paris and Helen first looked into each others’ eyes and brought a world of gods and men to war.

Or maybe that was just the cyclone that roared into the bathroom to coalesce into the tall figure of a haughty prince.

Carling and Rune both turned as one to look at Khalil. The Djinn held out his hand. On the broad white palm lay a black, half-crushed length. Time had corroded it so badly it was barely recognizable as a knife.

FIFTEEN

Rune stood like stone, his body clenched.

Carling reached out slowly to pick up the knife and closed her fist around it. She looked up at Khalil’s strange diamond-like gaze. The Djinn was watching her, head cocked, his expression filled with curiosity.

However, he did not ask for an explanation. Instead, he said, “This completes the second of the three favors I have owed you.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Thank you, Khalil.”

He inclined his head. Something else flickered across his spare features, and in a rare gesture, he touched her fingers. Then he disappeared in a whirlwind of Power.

Carling turned to Rune. He was staring at her fist, the skin around his mouth white. A vein in his temple throbbed visibly.

She could not remember her original past, but in this past they had created together, she remembered the first time she had laid eyes on him as a mature Vampyre. She almost didn’t recognize him, it had been so long since he had killed the priest and changed her life. But then there was something about the way he moved, and the way he smiled that wild white smile of his that drove females crazy with desire.

She had watched it all with a cold, expressionless face and an aged heart that had grown so cynical it no longer believed in anything except that things always change. And then on the island, she had demanded he kneel, and he had kissed her and she was dying, and he still had not remembered her, and so she struck at him with all the rage and pain she had inside—

Her past may have changed and yet it was all deeper and truer than it had been before. She could even see how she must have lived her life before he had ever come into it, like shadows of reality, another Carling, much like the sketch of the island outline as it lay over the Bay’s horizon. It was so strange, how all the pieces fit seamlessly together.

Now she realized there was a problem with choosing not to stay in love with him. How could she hope to recover from such feelings or set them aside, when he was standing right in front of her, embodying everything that had slipped past her barriers and caused her to fall in love with him in the first place?

He was everything she could have wished for in a life partner and far more than she had ever hoped to find, with his compassion and caring, his intellect that was so well seasoned in nuance and strategy, his ruthlessness tempered with reason, mischievous wit and a warrior’s strength that was so indomitable, she could lean on him when she felt weak and he could match her when they went head-to-head.

As she had told him, she was not good at surrender. Something inside of her was too fierce to bend easily or often, too well entrenched in the habit of rule. But she found she had to bow to her own feelings on this and surrender to the experience of loving him, because it was simply impossible to do anything else.

She reached up and stroked his temple. He was clearly suffering for some reason, and it hurt her to see it. She said gently, “We knew this was possible.”

“Yes.” He took her hand, pressed her fingers against his mouth and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what hit him the hardest.

He had actually changed history. He thought of the priest he had killed and he realized that wasn’t what shook him so badly. Every time he had to kill, he changed the course of the future. He had accepted that responsibility a very long time ago.

No, what really shook him to his foundation was the thought of how many times Carling had slipped into the fade either alone or with only Rhoswen, or other Vampyres and humans to guard her. The doorway to her past had stood wide open many times for any dark creature or spirit of Power with the capacity to slip through. She had once mentioned that she had enemies. Any person with her Power and at her level of position would.

What if something had already slipped through and was stalking her in the past? Her episodes seemed to be some kind of conduit for him. When they stopped, the passageway closed and he came back to the present. What if something else found a way to stay back in the past?